Posted
by
timothy
on Thursday October 08, 2009 @04:10PM
from the advancing-the-useful-arts-and-sciences dept.

JynxMe writes "Paice is a tiny Florida company that has patented a way to apply force to a car's wheels from an electric motor or internal combustion engine. Paice thinks that Toyota is infringing on its technology, and is going after the automaker in court. The legal spat became much more serious for Toyota this week, when the US International Trade Commission decided to investigate the matter. In the worst-case scenario for Toyota, the commission could ban the hybrid Camry, third-generation Prius, Lexus HS250h sedan and Lexus RX450h SUV."

Would this have blown your mind if you heard about it on September 14, 1998, the earliest priority date?

Heard about what? Hybrid cars? The first time I heard/read about a hybrid car was in the early 90's, when Volvo uncovered their Environmental Concept Car (ECC), which was powered by a gas turbine engine combined with an electric motor and batteries.

You're right. I have actually read a good portion of the patent and it's very specific about the fact that a ton of prior art already exists!

In fact, the patent basically says "well we added an AC induction motor to drive the wheels, AND it has a gasoline engine and regenerative braking". From looking at the dates on the patent, I can tell you there is nothing novel about it. It is a basic building blocks continuation of existing technology.

Their first claim describes a system with three electric motors. The Prius has two. How does that infringe?

Also, they mention the Prius and published articles describing how the Prius works as prior art in their patent application. These articles were published before their earliest application. If they were describing something that was used in the Prius, it would have been invalidated by the prior art that they listed!

Therefore, they are describing something that is different than the Prius, and the Patent Troll court in Texas strikes again!

If I ever have to sue anyone for patent infringement, I will surely go there - it appears as if you can't lose!!!

This is the problem with Patents..... does anyone really think that Toyota copied this companies idea, does anyone think that this company would become internationally known for their hybrid cars if Toyota had not produced hybrid cars instead.... No...

So why does the patent system protect them, and allow them to block another companies products from sale....?

Do you REALLY believe that a large company, say Ford, has never stolen an idea from an inventor and tried to steamroll them? Intermittent wipers anyone?

I agree in this time of patent trolls that more and more shenanigans are occurring but that doesn't mean that some large company wouldn't take an idea and run with it - you make it sound like they are above this and that's crazy. It HAS happened in the past, it WILL happen in the future, and if you're the inventor you could easily go broke trying to defend y

Of course steamrolling has happened. I'd like a new system set up in which it can't. What I mean is, if there were no speed limits, it would be impossible to speed. Can't get a parking ticket for an expired meter if the parking space isn't metered. Same thing with intellectual property. If ideas couldn't be owned, they couldn't be stolen. And they couldn't be hoarded, buried, blocked, squelched, forgotten or anything else contrary to the intent of advancement. The saddest use of a patent has to be to

How about work for a living instead of patenting vague ideas and waiting for a company to make something that sort of resembles it?

Believe you me, I want to see more of these patent trolls. Keep them coming until the system breaks.

Just like medical predators and ambulance chasing lawyers, I congratulate them for driving health care costs to the point where litigation avoidance - not patient care or comfort, is the deciding factor in medical decisions. No one can afford to get sick without insurance in the US, and frankly not everyone can even afford the insurance. Thus, the health care system is broken, and thus - it HAS to get fixed NOW.

Hopefully the same thing will happen with patents.

Now don't get me started on copyrights... nah, you can download the torrent...

Just like medical predators and ambulance chasing lawyers, I congratulate them for driving health care costs to the point where litigation avoidance - not patient care or comfort, is the deciding factor in medical decisions. No one can afford to get sick without insurance in the US, and frankly not everyone can even afford the insurance. Thus, the health care system is broken, and thus - it HAS to get fixed NOW.

What makes you assume that it will get fixed? As far as I can see, there is a significant portion of people in the government that would love to continue seeing it "broken". As a matter of fact, plenty of people will attest that US health care is not broken at all.

Personally, I don't think that "US health care" even exists.... but that's just me.

Because I'm a fully qualified, board certified specialist who COULD practice medicine in the US, but refuses to because it's too much hassle. And what's worse is, I'm not the only one. There are many, many physicians who have opted out of medicine and into something less stressful (and potentially disastrous in financial terms). A country that encourages trained specialists to actually work in something less risky because of litigation or even worse, having insurance companies practice medicine by telling doctors what to do and what not to do, is a bit screwed up.

But then again I forget, this is the US we are talking about. A country that owes the world close to 12 trillion dollars (not counting social security and health care), is printing money like mad, has double digit unemployment (17% if you look at U-6), whose own government admits unavoidable financial armaggeddon [moneyandmarkets.com], and yet has a stock market that rallies 40% with apparently no end in sight... Yeah, I guess anything could happen.

We spend more on healthcare to cover 25% of the people than countries with socialized medicine pay to cover 100%. We either need to go to 100% following one of their models (thus increasing services and reducing cost at the same time) or abandon all government interference in health care and cut that massive chunk out of the budget.

We could start by limiting the US healthcare consumer's subsidization of foreign healthcare costs - require any drug company doing business in the US to sell drugs at a best price level - i.e. what the drug is sold for in the EU or Canada.

Of course, that would drastically alter the pharma industry's business model; or raise prices outside of the US while dropping them in the US.

Whilst I don't know for a fact, common sense tells me that the US should have the lowest drug pricing in the western world. Why? Because elsewhere, whoever purchases drugs, doesn't pay for them because the socialized healthcare system does and thus there's much less incentive for drug companies to compete on price since patients don't care, if they're prescribed the most expensive option.

In a socialized medicine country, they say "we'll buy it for $10." The drug costs $5 to make. The drug companies have the choice of selling it for $10 or not selling it at all. In the US, they have a monopoly. They price the drug at $500 and run ads on TV explaining how if you don't have it you are stupid. Insurance pays for all but the copay. And in some cases, where the drug company said "then we won't sell it" the response was "then we won't honor your patent here, and if we have to start making it ourselves, I wouldn't be surprised if it ended up on the black market headed back into the US." In almost all cases, the drug company sold it for the lower price, except where they give the drugs away for free and claim the deduction off the highest world-wide sale price (i.e. giving them away in one African country while the general price there was $20, but claming $2000 deduction on it because that's what they sell it in the US for).

I live in a European country with socialized medicine and suffer from a condition for which I must buy what I've been prescribed every three months and the receipt says 2 000+ EUR (almost $ 3 000) but I pay only 3 EUR (about $ 4).

I live in a country with socialized medicine. All my prescriptions state the purchase price, and none of them have any number other than that. I'm curious where you are that they give you a receipt that doesn't match what you pay. What's the drug? Perhaps someone else who gets it in the US could say what it costs there.

Oh and if you have already emigrated then there is no "we" anymore from your perspective.

You obviously don't know how it works. I'm still a citizen of the USA and will be for the rest of my life (including a requirement to file with the IRS and pay taxes in the US every year for the rest of my life, even if I have no financial activities inside the US). So I'm still an American. The people here think so, and so does Uncle Sam.

You're happy paying insurance companies whose first priority is to make as much profit as possible, and as a result avoid paying out to it's customers as much as they possibly can? Insurance companies that will only insure the people who statistically will not use even a fraction of what they put in? Personally, I'd rather pay extra in taxes to help some stranger receive the medical care that they need, a stranger I've never met and will never meet, than pay some insurance company that puts healthcare _secondary_ to their primary purpose of making money.

If you've found an insurance company that isn't like that then I retract my statement (and would love to know who you use). But I highly doubt there is a private insurance company out there who's first priority _isn't_ to make money, with paying its customers second (or third, or fourth, or fifth, or...).

Is that the only option in this debate for those who disagree with government control of health care? Is that the level of argument? I'm not impressed.I'm sure I'll be modded down, like my original comment was, and I probably should not have said "most". I should have said half, since the latest polls show about an even split. But few Americans are going to be happy about the total cost when the bill finally comes.

It isn't some people working supplementing those that don't or can't afford something that should be personal responsibility.
Got kids you can't afford medical care for? That shows you couldn't afford kids!!

Um, are you aware of all the unpredictable things that can happen to a child that can rack up enormous medical costs? Should we then greatly increase the minimum wage? I don't think those making $7.25 per hour are going to ever really be able to afford children in your view. They also probably won't even really be able to afford to take care of themselves should anything happen to them.

Once all these people die off are you going to come clean my office, pickup my trash, work at McDonald's, and do minimal pay day labor in the fields? After all someone has to do that stuff. If you don't want to I suggest you not look so lowly on those that do it for us. Society has a lot of positions that aren't the best, but still need to be filled. People doing those jobs don't deserve to be spit on by the rest of us.

The have-nots greatly outnumber the haves. When the divide between the two grows too large bad things generally happen.

I can sympathize with that, about 5 years ago my wife was diagnosed with an incurable but non-debilitating illness, it can and is treated medicinally. I happened to be unemployed at the time after being laid off and cobra had run out...I had been actively looking for work but had to take medicare to get by until I found a job. After I found one, I tried to go from medicare to the same companies paid healthcare and was told my wifes illness was a pre-existing condition (even though it was discovered while covered by the medicare side of the same company) and I havent been able to get her coverage since. In the meantime my bills keep outpacing my ability to pay them and keep a roof over my familes head. IMHO thats broken.

I don't get how anyone can claim they have the right to being cured of any sickness they get. Doctors work their asses off to get where they are. How fair is it for those doctors to have to treat bums off the street who haven't contributed anything to society.

Let's talk after you lose your job (and insurance) and get into an accident. Like for instance a drunk driver T-boning you. Let's also talk after you lose your house, retirement and savings. I for sure, hope that will never happen to anyone. Yet it does.

I don't get how anyone can claim they have the right to being cured of any sickness they get. Doctors work their asses off to get where they are.

If you think that the extra costs we spend in the U.S. on health care go to doctors or for better treatment, you're sadly mistaken. Approximately 30% of the costs go directly to the insurance industry. Another 14% are spent by hospitals on staff whose sole job is to file insurance claims. That's right, almost half our costs are administrative in nature.

The best cost to remove is the litigation and effects of the litigation that are destroying the system.

I find it sad that right-wing politicians have convinced you of an idea that has no basis in fact. The direct costs of tort are negligible: 0.46%, according to the recent estimates. [1] While you might assert that the indirect costs of defensive medicine are higher, you have no way to prove that this is the case. Indeed, there is a lack of statistical correlation between the states with lower health costs and the states with tort caps. And while correlation does not imply causation, lack of correlation does imply lack of causation.

By the way, Canada has more tort per capita than the U.S. They also have lower infant mortality rates, higher life expectancies, higher cancer survival rates, and lower costs. Please, tell me how my evidence is wrong and how litigation really is destroying the system. I'll be especially persuaded by the anecdotal testimony of some doctor bitching and moaning about his malpractice insurance costs.

(FYI, don't get surgery in Texas. If the surgeon accidentally cuts your balls off because he switched your chart with someone else's, the most you'll be able to get is $250k. And just think, since the cap was passed in 2003, the state has seen its costs rise more than anyone else's. Tort "reform," indeed.)

[1] G.F. Anderson et al., "Health Spending in the United States and the Rest of the Industrialized World," Health Affairs 24, no. 4 (2005): 903-914.

If you want health care then save money or buy insurance that lets you get the care. If you don't want it then don't. I don't get how anyone can claim they have the right to being cured of any sickness they get.

YES! Abso-f***ing-lutely right!!!

And while we're at it, let's get rid of police and fire departments as well. I have enough money to hire a private security company with guns and I also own fire extinguishers!

I also don't get why some people think they have a right to safety, it's your fault if you have valuables or live near a bad neighborhood! Why should I have to pay to protect your sorry a$$?

Sarcasm aside, I find it actually quiet sad that we're still having this health-care debate and that there are people like you spewing this crap.

yup. And consider that in a society where you pay through the nose for your treatment, it's going to encourage this kind of attitude to those that can't pay through no fault of their own.
In the UK our National Health Service isn't perfect, but it's bloody good - no-ones' stopping you taking out private health insurance if you want to supplement it, but the base level of care is available to all. One of the most surreal arguments I've seen recently has been the hysterical reaction to Obama's proposals, sh

ust like medical predators and ambulance chasing lawyers, I congratulate them for driving health care costs to the point where litigation avoidance - not patient care or comfort, is the deciding factor in medical decisions. No one can afford to get sick without insurance in the US, and frankly not everyone can even afford the insurance. Thus, the health care system is broken, and thus - it HAS to get fixed NOW.

Wrong.

Yes, you're partially correct about why health care is so expensive: it's mainly I think due

A system where the loser pays the winner the lesser of the two sides legal fees (i.e., it never costs you more than twice your own costs to sue) is a much more workable system. It's trivial for a large business to game the system by always incurring $3 million in legal fees when defending against each claim, thereby chilling even the most reasonable suits.

when I was researching the Prius and it's hybrid system in the late 90s and the year 2000, it was well known by the hybrid techies that a very old patent( expired ) used the design of the power split device( planetary gears ) used by Toyota. I don't think it brought in a 2nd motor and used it as both a motor and generator as Toyota did but the basic concepts were all there in the public domain.

not to mention that the patent listed was filed in 2006. Toyota had their hybrid system running in cars in Japan as early as 1997. Those jurists much have been morons to have awarded that case against Toyota.

Did you read the patent or are you just assuming that because it's about a patent that it's also frivolous. There are a lot of bad patents out there, but assuming that they're all garbage isn't conducive to fixing the situation of bad patents. It just creates more noise in every discussion about patents.

If they honestly think they have a claim, then it would be absurd not to go after it.

Read as: It doesn't cost all that much to file a patent, let's threaten to sue and see if Toyota will settle. Even if we only make a couple hundred thousand, Toyota will be happy to have the FTC off their back, and we'll have paid our costs for incorporation, and filing this (bogus) patent.

Well, the issue here is that the fucked-up US PTO granted the patent in question, not that a few morons filed it. B.t.w., the filing date is May 2006, well after the second generation Prius cars hit the US market.

How can someone be granted a patent for something that is already mass-produced by someone else can be explain by either unlimited greed or stupidity or both.

Making money is only a means to an end. Why don't the people who make up Paice engage in something more productive?

On the other hand, maybe Toyota really is doing something unique and non-obvious with hybrid propulsion and Paice can prove prior art. It could be, but in this day and age of patent trolls, i am skeptical.

After all the Prius, embodying virtually ALL of these claims was ON SALE in Japan in 1997, after MANY years in development.

These guys first filed in 1998, and kept re-filing till they were spot on.

How likely is it they were following the published research in this field (or had a mole in Toyota) and cobbled something together and rushed to the patent office? Since Toyota was SELLING it BEFORE they filed you can pretty well assume this is the case given the lead time required to bring a vehicle to market.

The prior patents were not enough to keep Prius out of the US, and this one won't be either.

Start by reading the patent claims and the dates involved. Follow it back to the patents they claim this was based on.

Their earlier patent 6,554,088 did not mention AC-to-DC conversion. Only AFTER Toyota move to AC-DC conversion did this company start inserting that term into their applications. Further, this patent even references the Toyota transmission and the Prius by name.

The current patent is therefore based on a patent which already recognized the Prius.

I don't think they have a claim. Read the patent. Other than sharing either electric or gas or both, the patent is not even close. The Prius engine runs to maintain battery charge and engine temperature. The patent claims electric unless the power demand is above 30 of the gas engine capacity so it only runs in a high effeciency power band. There are some things that resemble each other, The patent is so far off it would like Microsoft unable to use a graphical user interface because Apple patented the

This is where the president outta step in and stop the stifling of the hybrid market by null and voiding any such patents, it would be much better than cash for clunkers...and not cost us a dime. The car companies in the US and Japan could then stop suing each other and get down to designing the best hybrids, unhindered by crap like this from other car manufacturers and individuals.

But the question remains why the case was awarded against them - as post #29686903 [slashdot.org] points out, the patent the Prius supposedly infringes against is based on a patent that has recognized the Prius. Plus, the first patent was filed after the Prius entered mass production. That doesn't quite support the idea of Toyota stealing the tech unless Paice took extremely long to get that patent filed after disclosing its contents to Toyota.

The US is not the market for Toyota it once was. The reasons for selling into the US are declining with each passing year and Prius are showing up on used lots in increasing numbers, so I doubt the boys in Toyota Town will lose much sleep over this bit of news either way.

Typically Toyota uses the US market to drive design improvements that they want to make and can't pay for at home via high profit margin specialty items. This is why they created the EV RAV4 way back in 1994 and the first round of PRIUS sedans when California backed off the polution requirements. Those early models were a way to pay the designers and engineers to improve the technology and get smarter without loosing buckets of money. Currently they are packing high demand US cars with extras like navigation (and solar panels starting next year) to increase the volume of the technology they want to use elsewhere on other things to drive down costs. Great smart marketing and management by them when they sucker us into paying high prices for these extras but we want the cars so we pay up and they make a lot of extra profit.......

Honda has been doing the same thing with engine technology in other products like race cars, snow blowers, ATVs and motor cycles for years. The technology and design features discovered and the factories built for one product pays for the design improvements in other places like great small cars......

So they ostensibly lose a little money and 'dump' cars in to the US. Not all of us are suckered into bloated options-- and US car makers are famous for them, too. That they were able to find a market is a good thing. US Prius owners get the benefit of higher resale value for not only mpg but overall quality aids resale and ownership costs, too. Sour grapes, dude.

The remaining US automakers could learn a few lessons. Look at how well NUMMI cars continue to sell.

Right now Toyota is selling the Prius in the US about as fast as they can make them. Go talk to a dealer now and see what you have to choose from. Chances are you will need to order from the factory. As for showing up on used lots? Yes, I would expect as time passes and more new units are sold into the US, the numbers on used lots would eventually increase.

"The US is not the market for Toyota it once was. The reasons for selling into the US are declining with each passing year and Prius are showing up on used lots in increasing numbers"

* citation needed

I fail to understand this as Toyota outsells GM worldwide, and is within a few points in the US. Perhaps you're just seeing more Priuses (Priusi?) on used car lots because dealers are stocking what people want, and cash for clunkers took a lot of US cars out of the used car market?

The KBB of an 8 year old Prius is still around $10k. So, um... dunno what you're saying.

Sales figures do not support your claim, sales are about the same on the camry and tundra, the tacoma only dropped slightly...probably due to the slightly higher tundra sales with the new bodystyle. Even in this declining market, the toyotas are selling. And just by observation, you have obviously not looked around lately. I see a lot of toyotas down here in the southern states. Many prius, tundras, tacomas, sienna vans, you name it. I think if anything the toyota sales here have increased by several m

Perhaps they did not go back far enough? Diesel-electric transmission has been around since the 1920's. From the 1960's until they electrified the line the East Coast Mainline in the UK ran Diesel-Electric trains. Of course the system is somewhat simpler than hybrid cars but the basic principle is the same: fuel runs generator and the generator charges batteries and powers electric traction motors.

Exactly, how can a technology brought to market in 2001 violate a patent filed in 2006? Or, how come a patent that applies to a technology that was brought to market in 2001 be granted when it was filed in 2006?

and it was sold worldwide since 2001 (I'm assuming that includes the US).

If the US had technology companies run by engineers and technical people rather than lawyers and accountants perhaps they would chose"innovation" over "litigation" as a business strategy.

The sad truth is that even if someone at GM or Ford had the same idea in 1997 or earlier the bean counters and lawyers would have axed a hybrid in favour of more profitable SUVs..

If you don't believe me look at who's on the board at GM, do a search for engineer in this article: (http://www.finchannel.com/news_flash/Oil_&_Auto/43476_New_Slate_of_GM_Board_of_Directors_Members_Selected_/)funny... almost no engineers...

VS at Daimler: (http://www.daimler.com/dccom/0-5-7158-1-65184-1-0-0-0-0-0-8-7145-0-0-0-0-0-0-0.html)4 out of 5 on the management board have engineering backgrounds..

Hmmm.

Stealing US ideas... what ideas? The idea to sue everybody... maybe I should patent "patent troll law suits" and sue all the patent lawyers (after all it is a "business process" and a "unique" invention)...

The US has a first-to-invent standard instead of the first-to-file standard you see in some other countries. If you can show you invented something before the other guy did (which usually requires a fair amount of documentation), you can get a patent even after the invention is in general use. You can also invalidate existing patents for the same invention. Of course there are all sorts of legal caveats, but that's the gist of it. The fact that the patent application was filed in 2006 doesn't necessaril

Blaming 'Big Oil' is fun and all, but come on. Hybridization generally cuts gas consumption by less than 50%, and that's only in their mid-sized sedan class. Trucks (big-rig and pickup), trains, planes, clunkers, etc. still burn lots of gas, I doubt that hybrids would make Exxon blink an eye.

It you're really looking for some kind of conspiracy, the American auto makers would be the best place. This little company is trying to prevent the sale/import of Toyota's cars, rather than just collecting royalties

No, I'm sure that big oil wants you all to drive hybrids. After all, the price of oil is going to continue going up anyway just through sheer demand for all the OTHER applications of oil. Why burn up all that oil quickly today in internal combustion engines, when you can be charged an arm and a leg for it in a couple decades or so?

1. A hybrid vehicle, comprising: at least two pairs of wheels, each pair of wheels operable to receive power to propel said hybrid vehicle; a first alternating current (AC) electric motor, operable to provide power to a first pair of said at least two pairs of wheels to propel said hybrid vehicle; a second alternating current (AC) electric motor, operable to provide power to a second pair of said at least two pairs of wheels to propel said hybrid vehicle a third AC electric motor; an engine coupled to said

They patented the transmission, exactly. The use of a planetary gearbox to sum the output of the gasoline and electric motors, or to have the gasoline motor drive the generator. I share the antipathy for software patents with most of the Slashdot crowd, but this is a classic hardware patent. Hardware patents have a long and important history, and are almost certainly a good thing.

Curiously, GM's Volt doesn't violate this patent, as it is a so-called "series hybrid", in that the gas motor only drives the generator, and the wheels are only driven by the electric motor. The Ford Fusion and Escape hybrids, and the Nissan Altima hybrid use exactly the same system that Toyota does, licensed from Toyota.

Toyota has made the system useful (in a way that the original patent isn't) by adding a second electric motor which assists in driving the wheels directly. This enables a "low gear", by having the gas motor run fast, driving the first motor/generator backwards to generate power, which drives the second electric motor. That is the decisive conceptual leap in the Synergy drive, and Toyota has of course patented that.

This looks like stuff they had in Scientific American back in 1972. Even the microcontroller was anticipated. The only addition (and it's mostly a bullshit one) is "a two-speed transmission may further be provided, to further broaden the vehicle's load range". CVT transmissions weren't envisioned then.

Sure enough, if you look at the list of cited patents, they go back to the early 70s. This is not new, and should not have received a separate patent as an "invention". There's zero inventing involved.

Contrary to oft-repeated headlines, a patent-holder never wants to block a patent-using technology from the market. They just want to get paid for it. If, indeed, the patent is valid — and the size of the patent-holder is no indication either way — Toyota simply needs to pay for the technology...

The article write-up seems like it is written by a Toyota-shill. If a Paice-shill were to write it, it could've been rephrased along the following lines:

After over 3 years of trying to dodge its responsibility, Toyota may finally be forced by the US International Trade Commission to respect America's Intellectual Property laws and pay a small American firm for the valuable technology, that Toyota found so useful for its hybrid vehicles.

I of course can't cite any examples because I don't know if one exists. But it is plausible for a patent holder to prevent their invention from making it to the market. This would only make sense in a case like consipracy nuts always pushed, that the oil companies bought out the patents for incredibly efficient ICE engines because it would hurt the value of their main product.

Again, not saying it's ever happened but a situation like that isn't too hard to imagine.

If Paice can get an injunction, though, it will hurt Toyota badly; they'll be forced to negotiate some kind of royalty deal or lose their hybrid sales.

But the court already ordered Toyota to pay royalties "based on the wholesale prices equal to 0.48 percent for a second- generation Prius, 0.32 percent for each Highlander and 0.26 percent for each Lexus RX400h."

No, it seems that Paice really wants to block Toyota hybrid sales... they tried to do that in their original patent suit (which they won), but the judge didn't agree that Toyota sales should be blocked; instead, he awarded Paice royalties. So now Paice is trying again in a different venue--the ITC.

I'd prefer they chose a sensible venue based on the location of the relevant parties, witnesses, and/or evidence. For example, they could sue in Florida, where they're located; or in New York, the North American headquarters of Toyota; or in Kentucky, the location of Toyota's American R&D facilities. But why Marshall, Texas? What can they point to in Marshall, Texas that makes it uniquely suited to serve as a venue for this case?

"way to apply force to a car's wheels from an electric motor or internal combustion engine"

Isn't there plenty of prior art on this?

BTW, the patent app is flawed. They specify a 2-speed transmission. My hybrid will NOT have a 2-speed transmission, I assure you. And it will have mechanical braking with an auxiliary regenerative system. Looks like i have a great chance at getting a patent on that, or some combination thereof.

Joking aside, this is continuing evidence of our patent system being pretty well h

To infringe claim 1 it would seem that you need at least one electric motor driving one pair of wheels and a second electric motor driving a second pair of wheels. i.e. four wheel drive with two electric motors (plus a third electric motor coupled to the IC engine).

Not sure (without hunting down that judgement) how given their extensive citing of Toyota products in their spec that they somehow convinced a court to award a win in 2005?

Given that the patent application was filed May 8, 2006 is seems that Toyota's hybrid easily predates (circa 1997) the patent.

The patent claims start, "1. A hybrid vehicle, comprising: at least two pairs of wheels, each pair of wheels operable to receive power to propel said hybrid vehicle;..." No later claim seems to remove the requirement that power is deliverable to all pair of wheels. Does a Prius drive all four wheels?

Thank Vulcan for Paice, without whose invention we would never have hybrid or electric cars. Without the Patent Office creating their monopoly, which has never produced a car, people freely speaking about how to make electric and hybrid cars would be getting us off internal combustion. And that's bad for America.

Boulton and Watt held patents on the original steam (as distinct from vacuum) engine which held up development for many years. The engine patents were nearly as bad as patenting the wheel - they basically were allowed to patent the crank when used as part of a steam engine, though it is an ancient mechanism. Fox Talbot had patents on photography which held up development for years. The patent laws were just as ridiculous then.